


Anniversary

by SirKai



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Anniversary, Cooking, Dinner, M/M, romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 18:43:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirKai/pseuds/SirKai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amon and his Lieutenant celebrate a certain notable night with a very special dinner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anniversary

“There is a certain... allure to it, isn’t there?” the Lieutenant asked, shoulder-to-shoulder with the Equalist leader.

Amon shifted his gaze from the glittering, orange-tinted cityscape and tilted his head slightly at his Lieutenant. His hands were tucked neatly behind his back. “How do you mean?” he asked.

“There is so much culture, so much to... grasp.” The Lieutenant dragged his fingers through his own dark hair. “There are so many places we could dine in tonight. We could indulge in noodle soup prepared by water tribe chefs, or have a fire nation cook fry us their famous spiced trout.”

“Lieutenant-”

“My parents always took me to this place that served crisp kale in a special wine sauce. I would pretend to hate it, but it was really good.” The Lieutenant smirked. “I wonder if there’s somewhere here in Republic City like that.”

“Lieutenant.”

“Or maybe we could visit a festival stall; we could get skewers of grilled onions and buffalo bison. We might even find a vendor who serves them with cups of steamed rice-”

“Lieutenant!”

The Lieutenant sighed, and turned to stare into Amon’s yellow eyes. These were surrounded that pale, expressionless mask, adorned with his olive cheeks and a crimson forehead. Lieutenant’s face slumped and his gaze drifted towards the floor. “I know. We can’t,” he conceded, and rested his arms against the balcony railing.

Amon watched the bustling city below, and leaned against the railing next to his subordinate. He listened to their alternating breaths.

The Lieutenant’s eyelids drooped slightly, and his head started to bow.

“You think tonight deserves a celebrated dinner?”

The Lieutenant wore an expectant look at him, with his brow slightly arched. He said “Yes, I think so,” but Amon knew it was truly more of a condescending ‘absolutely.’

Amon snickered. He moved a pace closer to the Lieutenant and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “You know what I think?” he asked. 

Lieutenant looked back up at him with a cocked eyebrow.

“I think I’d rather stay inside tonight. The city is far too loud. Too... impersonal. Surely you have something to prepare for dinner that could impress me, right? I can’t say I have much faith in the lot down there.” Amon motioned towards the cityscape.

A meager smile spread across the Lieutenant’s face. He rested his cheek against Amon’s hand. “I might be able to think of something.”

After a few minutes of rummaging through cupboards and yanking open drawers, Amon watched quietly from the kitchen table. With the sun firmly set, there was only the flickering candlelight and the golden hue from the nearby window of the cityscape to illuminate the room. Amon admired the way his Lieutenant seemed to glide from task to task, the muscles of his arms and the fabric of his sleeveless tunic bounding in and out of the candle lights. There was a rhythm to the way he’d flip the frying prawns, stir the boiling noodles, poking at the frying eggs, and carefully scatter an even amount of seasoning (none of which Amon could identify) across each item. Amon had never even noticed before the acute way the Lieutenant kept his spices and ingredients organized.

“Lieutenant, how do you keep track of this anarchy?”

The Lieutenant swabbed some tomato slices against a small plate of bread crumbs. “Excuse me?” he asked from over his shoulder.

Amon widened his arms, trying to encompass the entire breadth of the scene. “This! All of this you’re doing. The stirring and the flipping and showering the food with crumbs-” The Equalist leader dropped his hands on the table. “By the spirits, everything. This is utter madness.”

The Lieutenant dripped some oil into the pan with the frying egg, and neatly applied the breaded tomato slices. He glanced over his shoulder as the pan sizzled and hissed. “You lead a revolution of thousands Amon, yet a simple two course meal is beyond your comprehension?”

“Apparently so.”

There was a chuckle as the Lieutenant snatched a handful of herbs from his station of ingredients and his largest kitchen knife. The blade snapped up and down across the cutting board in a blurr. 

Amon cringed beneath his mask at the consistent tapping of the thin metal against the wood.

Once the knife reached the thicker stems of the herbs, the Lieutenant scooped the chopped remains of the herbs and dumped them into the boiling pot of noodles.

Amon sighed quietly.

There was a bit more stirring, more peering intently at certain ingredients in a pan or a pot with an audible “hmmm,” and then finally a few carefully poured ladles of noodles and shrimp into each ceramic bowl.

“One bowl of spiced noodles and sweet shrimp,” the Lieutenant said, gently placing the steaming bowl of noodles and prawns in front of the Equalist leader, and then slid next to it a small plate. “Served with a plate of breaded tomato and fried egg. Oh!” The Lieutenant fumbled back at the kitchen counter and glided back to the table, offering a pair of chopsticks to Amon with a smile. “Here you are.”

Amon held his breath for a moment, and then took the chopsticks from his subordinate. His shoulder slumped, and his eyes drifted towards the piping hot bowl of noodles. He felt the thuds of more dinnerware against the tabletop, and the friction of the opposite chair shifting across the floor as the Lieutenant nestled into his seat. 

The two sat across from each other at the tiny kitchen table. The Lieutenant glanced at the city through the nearby window. “You should start, Amon,” he said, looking back across the table. “This dinner is for you after all; it would be awfully rude for me to take the first bite,” the Lieutenant teased.

“Yes, of course.” There was a slight sting in the aroma. “It smells... good.”

“And I promise it will taste even better.” The Lieutenant stared from across the table, his head barely hovering above his pair of pair of chopsticks laced with steaming noodles.

Amon pinched his pair of chopsticks, dipped them through the surface of the silky soup, and retrieved a bundle of soft noodles. He took a breath, kept his head down, and carefully lifted up the bottom of his mask. He clamped the noodles with his teeth and guided them into his mouth with the chopsticks. He chewed for a moment, then swallowed.

The Lieutenant smirked at him. “Good, I presume?”

Amon breathed for a moment while settling his chopsticks back onto the edge of the bowl. He fixed his mask back to answer his Lieutenant. “Yes. Delicious.”

“I cook to please,” the Lieutenant said, slightly bowing his head before finally sucking the steaming noodles from his own chopsticks. “You normally,” the equalist started. He spoke in between bites and swallows. “Eat meals that are so... bland, so I thought... I’d prepare something... different tonight.”

“You seem to enjoy this kind of food,” Amon said. He idly stared into his bowl, and stirred his chopsticks through the dark soup.

The Lieutenant swallowed the final bite of his mouthful of noodles. He was already diving his chopsticks back into the bowl for a shrimp. “I _love_ it.” The Lieutenant offered a wide smile to the Equalist leader. “I was starting to worry that I’d never get to share this with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, the food mentioned in this fic is in no way meant to be an accurate portrayal of any specific Asian dish; it's a fantasy setting with Asian inspirations, so that was direction I took with the food.
> 
> Secondly: HUGE, immeasurable thanks to the wonderful Veitstanz! Who not only beta'd the fic for me and theory-crafted the concept with me, but created some wonderful art to accompany the fic!
> 
> And finally, the "anniversary" in the title is mostly meant to be in the 'honor' of the season 1 finale of Legend of Korra. It was exactly one year before the date of this being posted that the show stomped on our hearts and crushed our souls, and basically sunk almost the entirety of season 1. Nonetheless, the show did fuel tons of wonderful theory crafting, beautiful fanart, and quite a few fanfics I had a blast writing, so there's some bitterness and sincerity within this tribute.


End file.
